


your pennies in my palm

by spacemancharisma



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (as in: they definitely have sex but it's not shown in the fic), Domesticity, Fade to Black, First Kiss, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Making Out, Pining, author is sex-positive ace, basically Jon thinks that Martin is over him and he's big emo about it, brief misunderstanding, but don't even worry that is Not The Case, oh my god and there was only one bed, post-159, sex-positive asexual character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemancharisma/pseuds/spacemancharisma
Summary: "I really loved you, you know."The statement was in the past-tense, unavoidably so. Like ships passing in the night, it seemed that Jon had come to his senses enough to love Martin anything close to the way he deserved just as Martin finally got over whatever had possessed him to care for Jon. So Jon had no right to the way Martin held him, at least no right to feel so at home in it. If Martin wanted to be affectionate with him, Jon didn’t think he could find it within himself to stop him even if he wanted to, but he would have to do his best to meter the fluttering of his heart and keep all his unwanted emotions tamped down.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 12
Kudos: 309





	your pennies in my palm

It really wasn’t strange, falling into bed together that first night. Maybe it should have been, but they were far past that by this point, the fog of the Lonely still clinging to both of them, the cuffs of Jon’s pants still stained with Peter’s gore. The things they had done for each other well surpassed the awkwardness and trepidation of physical closeness, and even without that understood desperation, the way they had clutched at each other when Jon had finally broken through to Martin, the way their bodies folded together and their hands gripped hard enough to hurt, was enough to know that  _ touch _ wasn’t something to be danced around anymore. 

And more than that, they were a bone-deep, spiritually-profound, once-in-a-lifetime kind of exhausted. 

So it was far too easy for Martin to curl himself around the tiny, shivering circle of Jon’s body like protecting something fragile and precious. And it was far too easy for Jon to wrap both of his arms around the one Martin had slung over his waist and clutch at them almost too tightly with blunt and dirty fingernails. There was no time to blush and fret when they were asleep nearly as soon as they hit the single mattress in the safehouse.

In the morning, though, the haze of sleep was no longer enough to keep Jon’s heart from pounding when he woke to the warmth of Martin surrounding him completely. It would be so easy to melt into him, so easy to burrow down into the heat of strong arms around him, so easy to take this love as it was given, but behind the place where his stomach was twisting almost painfully, a sinking feeling was settling into Jon. 

_ I really loved you, you know _ .

The statement was in the past-tense, unavoidably so. Like ships passing in the night, it seemed that Jon had come to his senses enough to love Martin anything close to the way he deserved just as Martin finally got over whatever had possessed him to care for Jon. So Jon had no right to the way Martin held him, at least no right to feel so at home in it. If Martin wanted to be affectionate with him, Jon didn’t think he could find it within himself to stop him even if he wanted to, but he would have to do his best to meter the fluttering of his heart and keep all his unwanted emotions tamped down. 

That was easier said than done with the soft smell of sunlight and Martin enveloping him, Martin’s thumb stroking gently over his arm in his sleep. Jon felt like he was drowning in how much blind adoration he felt, like he couldn’t breathe. He felt sick from it. He didn’t deserve this. He couldn’t have this. 

His stomach still rolling, Jon ever so slowly extricated himself from Martin’s arms. Martin huffed slightly and wriggled around to hold Jon’s abandoned pillow to his chest. Jon felt his heart clench, and something Bigger inside of him took that moment to swell in a wave of possessive protectiveness that frightened him with its intensity. 

_ Tea. Tea, _ he reminded himself.  _ That’s not for you. He’s not for you. Go make tea. Go make yourself useful.  _

When his feet hit the cold hardwood outside of the bedroom, it did something to clear his head. He was still exhausted, he didn’t know if he would ever not be exhausted again, but he was present enough to feel his hands and think about something, anything, other than the way Martin’s hair seemed to soak up all the sunlight as the morning began.

Martin shuffled out of the bedroom just as the kettle started to whistle, running his hands through sleep-ruined hair. Jon felt like he might die at the sight. 

“You’re making tea?” Martin’s eyes lit up when he saw Jon. 

Jon flushed down his neck at the attention and stammered, “Yes, well, I’m sure it won’t be nearly as good as if you did it, but I woke up early and wanted to make use of myself, and I know better than to try to cook, so, I figured-“

“I’m sure it’ll be lovely, darling,” Martin leaned down to wrap his arms around Jon’s waist and rest his chin on his shoulder, pressing a kiss onto his cheek. 

Jon blacked out for just a moment. 

When his eyes focused again, he poured a cup of tea for himself and one for Martin with shaking hands, his brain like a skipping record repeating,  _ He doesn’t mean it like that. He’s being kind. He’s an affectionate person. He was trapped in the Lonely for so long, of course he needs the touch. He doesn’t mean it like that. Calm the hell down, Jonathan.  _

He caught himself staring at Martin’s hands as he stirred sugar into his tea, mouth going dry as his head spun. Martin sat down on the couch with his tea, settling down to read a book he had grabbed at random from the shelf. Jon was frozen, staring into his own cup, blankly trying to convince himself that he wasn’t still dreaming, or trapped in some wildly unrealistic illusion or hallucination. As if in a haze, Jon curled up on the other end of the couch, holding his mug with both hands and trying to decide if it was weirder to look at Martin or to not. 

In fact, he spent the rest of the day trying to decide if it was weirder to look at Martin or to not. It was all he could think about, how desperately he wanted to lean into the affection Martin wouldn’t stop giving him, and how deeply he didn’t deserve it, how he was twisting it in ways it wasn’t meant but that he couldn’t help all the same. By that night, Martin had kissed him once more on the cheek as well as several times on the crown of his head. He had pulled Jon’s legs over his lap as they read on the couch together and wrapped him in as many hugs as he could find an excuse for. Jon felt like he was going to pass out at every touch. Martin acted like it was the most natural thing in the world to be all over Jon, and Jon was desperate to give into it. It  _ hurt _ , how badly he wanted. He wasn’t used to it.

Somehow, Jon managed to make it through the day without his heart crawling out through his throat. His hands never stopped shaking and the book he was reading might have been upside-down for the better part of an hour and he failed to notice. The only thing he could hear was the pounding of his blood in his ears, the only thing he could feel was the burning in all the places Martin touched him, and the only thing he could think was that he had become a much more mundane type of monster, starving for a kind of love and a kind of touch that he had already scorned when it had been in his reach. 

This time, when they settled into the house’s only bed, Jon was acutely aware of himself, and his body was wound as tight as a bowstring. Martin spared no time in winding his arms around Jon’s waist and pulling him close, muttering something about how tense he was.

The bowstring snapped.

“Martin, I-” Jon pulled himself out of Martin’s embrace and sat up, back to the wall, arms wrapped around himself. Martin’s face twisted with confusion and worry, and he drew himself up to sit next to Jon. 

“I… Martin I can’t keep doing this. You… You’re so kind, you’re so gentle, and you don’t deserve this, but I,” he swallowed hard, and picked at the threads on his shirt. “I know you don’t love me anymore, not in a- a romantic sense, you made that very clear and I understand and respect that, but the thing that’s incredibly unfair to you is that I… I do, love you, that is, in a romantic sense, and you’ve been so kind with me and so affectionate and it’s the only thing I could ever ask for, but every time you touch me I can’t help but wanting it to be  _ more _ , wanting it to feel for you how it does for me, and it makes me sick because I don’t deserve your love, not by any measure, and I have no right to- to  _ want _ , as deeply as I want, and it just wouldn’t be fair to you if you didn’t know, so that you could… be informed, I suppose, in the future. If you don’t want to, to touch me anymore, that is. I completely understand.”

Martin stared at him for a moment in blank confusion, then his body shook with half a laugh. 

“Jon, I… What would  _ possibly _ make you think that I don’t love you anymore?”

Jon blinked a few times, his black eyes blown huge in the dark. “I, I mean, you  _ said _ so, in the Lonely. You said you ‘loved me’, past-tense.”

“Oh, Jon,” Martin sighed, his face falling. “Not like that, I…” he ran a hand through his hair and Jon saw the faint glow of the moon light up the handful of strands of gray dispersed throughout.  _ We match _ , he thought nonsensically. 

Martin continued, “When I was in the Lonely, I really couldn’t feel much of anything. Emotions were kind of just, a non-object in there,” he reached out and very slowly took Jon’s hands in his, giving him plenty of time to pull away. Jon didn’t. “But now that I’m out, now that  _ you _ brought me back, back where I can be and  _ feel _ … I am very much in love with you Jon, just as much as I have been for years now, even more.”

Jon choked on a gasp and couldn’t stop the “Really?” before it escaped him. 

Martin smiled wide and brought one of Jon’s hands up to his mouth, pressing impossibly gentle kisses to each scarred knuckle. “Yes, love, really. I’m so sorry you misunderstood me. This whole time, I,” he broke off with a faint laugh. “I thought that we were, you know,  _ together _ . I thought it was just understood, after everything. I’m so sorry for making you so uncomfortable.”

“No, no!” Jon cut him off immediately and scooted closer, holding Martin’s hands tightly in his own. “You didn’t do anything wrong, god, all I could ever ask for is for every day to be like today, for you to be so close all the time.” Martin nuzzled his face into Jon’s hand and Jon felt himself start to melt. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Martin, and I am. I am so, so sorry for the way I treated you, before. I was cruel and unfair and you didn’t deserve it, not ever, and I can never apologize enough.”

“Shh, love, it’s okay,” Martin crooned as he tentatively wrapped his arms around Jon. Jon crawled into his lap like he had been waiting his whole life for an invitation. “It’s okay, I forgive you. Things are better now. Not everything, of course, but we are. We’re better now, and that’s all behind us. Now we’re here, and we’re together, and I love you, and that’s what matters.”

Jon pulled his face back from where he had buried it in Martin’s throat and put one shaking hand along his jaw. “Please, I,” he blinked up at Martin with long eyelashes and wide, dark eyes, and Martin knew he would give him absolutely anything he asked for in that moment. “Please, can I… Can I kiss you?”

Well, that request was much simpler than it might have been. 

“Oh my god, Jon, please, absolutely, oh my god-“

And then Jon was kneeling with his knees between Martin’s and pushing both hands hard into Martin’s hair as he leaned over him, fixing their mouths together with an urgency Martin had never dreamed of in all the fantasies he tried so hard to repress. Martin’s mouth fell open with something that couldn’t quite be qualified as a moan, and Jon took the opportunity to kiss him deeper like the world was ending. Maybe it was. Martin’s hands gripped tight, so tight to Jon’s t-shirt, and then he found his way to winding his fingers in Jon’s long hair, and Jon practically whined at the feeling.

“I love you,” he murmured against Martin’s mouth as he shoved his hands under his shirt and Martin arched up hard into the contact. 

Greedily, Jon started making his way down Martin’s throat, scraping his teeth along the ridge of his windpipe and smiling against his skin when he heard Martin gasp. The hands that had been running up and down Martin’s sides now latched onto his shirt and made to pull it over his head. Martin followed Jon’s lead, but as soon as his shirt was off, he put a palm in the center of Jon’s chest, and with more resolve than he knew he was capable of, pulled back. 

“Wait, wait,” his voice was bleary as Jon stared at him with his head cocked and his eyes hungry, clearly not sure why he was suddenly no longer giving his best effort at eating Martin whole. “I just, I need to make sure, I need to know where this is going, because I know, I mean, Georgie said that you don’t really, like, do the whole sex thing-”

“Maybe I do though,” Jon started mouthing along his jaw again and Martin felt his eyes roll back before he got a hold of himself. 

“No, Jon, I need you to be sure, I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything, god, this is more than I ever dreamed of having with you, so really, it’s great if you don’t want any more, it’s fine, I could die happy right now, I don’t want you to feel like I expect anything from you, I’m-”

“Martin,” Jon punctuated his interruption with a quick, sharp pinch of teeth on Martin’s collarbone. This time it was actually, definitely a moan. Jon grinned. “We can discuss the intricacies of my experiences with sexuality later if you want, but please rest assured that as complex as they are, right now they all agree on one thing, and that one thing is that I want terribly to be touching as much of you as possible, as much as possible. I don’t know how much more enthusiastic of a ‘yes’ I can give you.”

“Okay!” Martin squeaked, almost unable to comprehend what was happening all of a sudden.

“As long as you’d like to?” Jon asked, his hand pausing where it had been drawing circles high on one of Martin’s legs. 

“Oh, yes, yes, very much,” Martin’s mouth was watering and his eyes were cloudy with how much he’d like to, in fact. 

Jon gave another dangerously sharp grin. “Excellent.”

It was a while before they fell asleep, warm and buzzing, but they slept just the same as the night before. Jon curled up as small as he could be, Martin molded tight around the curve of his body, holding him close to his chest, Jon’s arms snaking around his. 

The difference was that this time they woke up to a kiss “good morning,” and then quite a few more, actually, just to cement that the morning was indeed good. 

It was. 


End file.
